which our author refers in the following extract: we give it rather to show Master Verstegan's lively spirit of narration than as any thing decisive on the controverted point.

This name, then, of Saxons they undoubtedly have of their use and wearing of a certain kind of sword or weapon invented and made bowing crooked, much after the fashion of a sithe, in imitation whereof it should seem to have first been made. And when of late I conferred with the excellent learned man M. Iustus Lipsuis, about the Saxons' true appellation (who also I found to concur with me in opinion), he could presently put me in mind that a sithe is yet at this present in the Netherlands called a Saisen. Now the swords of our ancestors being made somewhat after that manner (the edge being on the contrary side) they might well carry a like name unto such an edge-tool as they were made after; and albeit we find these kind of swords anciently written Seaxen or Seaxes, yet it is like enough that our ancestors sounded the x ass, for the Welshmen wrote them Saison, as they yet write us, which it is like they wrote, according as they heard them pronounce their own appellation. Of this kind of weapon they had two sorts, the one whereof being long were worn for swords, and the other being short, as hangers or wood-knives, and these they called hand-seaxes; and such they were which after their coming into Britain they had still in use, and did wear privately hanging under their long-skirted coats; wherewith at a banquet on Salisbury Plain where Hengestus had invited king Vortigern, about three hundred of his nobles, the watchword Take your seaxes being given, were all of them suddenly slain. And as their long seaxes or swords were as is said before made after the form of a sithe, so might their hand-seaxes as well in fashion and bigness as somewhat in name, agree unto their then used manner of sicles. Of this kind of hand-seax, Erhwinwine king of the East Saxons did bear for his arms three argent, in a field gules. And the learned Englehusus of this kind of seaxe and of the name of the Saxons hath this ensuing Latine rhythme,

Quippe brevis gladius apud illos Saxa vocatur
Unde sibi Saxo nomen traxisse putatur.

Which may be Englished thus

Because a Saxa termed is

The short sword which they wear,
There of the name of Saxons they
May well be thought to bear.

Now then it being manifest that our ancestors did affect and usually bear this kind of weapon called a seax, and that we find it not to have been used among the other Germans, unless of such as have afterward may have followed them in that fashion, why may not the peculiar bearers of that kind of weapon have gotten after the same their appellation? for seeing the name of the weapon, and the name of the bear

ers thereof is all one, either the weapon is so called of the men, or the men of the weapon: but that men are usually called according to the weapons which they bear, daily experience doth show us, especially in war, where by the names of Lances, Carabines, Pykes, Muskets, &c. the bearers of such weapons rather than the weapons are understood.

'And albeit such names do commonly remain unto their bearers only during the war, yet if they should still use those weapons, then doubtless would the names still remain unto them even from one posterity to another. For the Scythians as divers learned authors and of good judgment do report, gat and remained with that name because of their great use of shooting; for shooting in the Teutonick is called Schieten, and anciently cometh of the verb scytan, which signifieth to shoot. Moreover the Picards or people of Picardy are said first to have gotten that name of their great and most accustomed use of pikes. And as some affirm, the Galliglasses in Ireland do retain that name of the kind of polax which they are accustomed to use. And not only of the weapons or arms which they have born, have sundry people gotten their denominations, but others even of the fashion of apparel which they have been accustomed to wear, as the people inhabiting in Cisalpina were sometimes called Togata because they went in gowns. And the old inhabitants of the south parts of France were called Bracate of a short kind of coat wherewith they were usually clad. And he that will best consider the alterations of the names of many other people of Germany (which always have proceeded of one cause or other) will find it nothing strange that our ancestors having before had some other name, should afterwards come to leave the same, and to be called by the name of Saxons; for where for example sake (among others) are the names now vulgarly known in Germany of the Catti, the Udi, the Quadi, the Marcomanni, the Bucoteri, and the Sicambri? are they not all changed into other appellation? And the latter, to wit the famous Sicambri long since even in Germany itself grown into two several names and people which are now called the Geldres, and yet remain in their ancient residence, and the Franks that have made their habitation more higher into the land as before hath been noted, whose country now beareth the name of Franconia; part of them under prince Pharamund, entering afterwards into Gallia, left in fine unto that country the yet retained name of France, of some called Francia Occidentalis, because Franconia in Germany hath the name of Francia Orientalis.'-pp. 23-26.

Continuing the same subject, our author adds in a following chapter,

'And whereas some to make an ancient difference between the Saxons and the Germans, as if they were several nations, and came severally into Germany, will confirm an opinion that the Germans came from Persia, because (as is aforesaid) of the affinity of their language with the Persian; surely it is an opinion of a very slender confirmation, for that indeed there is no affinity at all between those two

languages; and albeit there may some half a dozen or half a score words be found in the Persian that are broken German words, as Choda, Phedar, Madar, Berader, Dochter, Star, Band, for God, Father, Mother, Brother, Daughter, Star, Band, what affinity makes this, when all the rest is altogether different? yea as far different as two languages can be the one from the other: and because I was desirous to be surely informed in this point, I wrote unto a gentleman of my acquaintance in Italy, in the year 1601, at such time as Sir Anthony Serley (Shirley) and Cachin Ollybeag were ambassadors there from the king of Persia, desiring him to confer with the best interpreters in their train, to know what affinity there might be between the Dutch and the Persian speeches, for there were that spoke them both exceeding well; but after they had used their memories as well as they might, they could find but about these half dozen words here set down, that could seem to have dependence on the Dutch; but more words by odds than these may be found in the same tongue that seem to have dependance on the Latine; and yet for all that, they are as far too few to make an affinity between the Latine and the Persian languages, as are the broken Latine words that are found in the Welsh language able to bring a nearness between the Latine and the Welsh. And I have heard that a man may find in the Irish some words that sound of the Hebrew, but they help little to make Irishmen thereby to be the better Hebricians and he that will observe it, shall find divers words in divers other most different languages that also agree together.'-pp. 29-31.

That portion of our author's treatise which is most curious, and perhaps we may even say, most interesting, is that contained in the chapters he devotes to the etymological survey of English names of places and persons. If the limits of a review not especially devoted to such antiquarian discussions, had permitted, we should have indulged in rather a lengthened article on this not very obvious subject; but we fear our readers will think that we have trespassed already too much on their good nature by our tale of olden times, and lest we should offend beyond the possibility of pardon, we take our leave for the present. Perhaps a future opportunity for the indulgence of our passion may occur.

Art. VI. The Court of King James the First; by Dr. Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester; to which are added, Letters illustrative of the Personal History of the most distinguished Characters in the Court of that Monarch and his Predecessors. By JOHN S. BREWER, M.A., of Queen's College, Oxford. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 846. London: Bentley, 1839.

THE author of these memoirs was born in 1583, and was educated at Westminster School, under the celebrated historian Camden, whence he was removed in 1600 to Trinity College, Cambridge. His celebrity as a preacher, aided by the friendly influence of Bishops Andrews, Vaughan, and Williams, obtained him a canonry of Windsor, in 1617, and three years later the deanery of Rochester, whence he was translated in 1625 to the bishopric of Gloucester. His ecclesiastical predilections were popish, and the policy of the Court of Charles, who had just succeeded to the throne, encouraged him to avow them more openly than befitted the times. Goodman, however, had miscalculated the policy of the monarch, and was therefore restrained. 'Main'taining,' says Wood, 'several heterodox opinions in his sermons 'at Court, he was checked for so doing in 1626;' and for some years contented himself with adorning his cathedral church, and with setting up, after the approved fashion of the school of Laud, pictures of the death and resurrection of the Saviour, in places of public resort. In 1640 he was brought into trouble by refusing to subscribe the canons which Laud, with such singular fatuity caused to be passed by a convocation, illegally continued after the dissolution of Parliament. Insensible to the dangers which surrounded the mitre and the crown, this short-sighted and superstitious prelate sought to achieve a momentary triumph at the risk of still further irritating an indignant and threatening people. Goodman was the only bishop who refused to comply with Laud's injunction. Others had opposed some of the canons in committee; but, yielding to the decision of the majority, had finally subscribed; Goodman, however, refused to do so, and the following account of what took place, furnished by Fuller, who was present on the occasion, is too characteristic to be omitted. He alone utterly refused his subscription thereunto. Whereupon the archbishop being present with us in king Henry the Seventh's chapel, was highly offended at him.' My lord of Gloucester,' 'said he, 'I admonish you to subscribe;' and presently after, 'My 'Lord of Gloucester I admonish you the second time to sub'scribe;' and immediately after, 'I admonish you a third time to 'subscribe.' To all which the bishop pleaded conscience, and re' turned a denial.'

Then were the judgments of the Bishops severally asked, 'whether they should proceed to the present suspension of Glou'cester, for his contempt herein. Davenant, bishop of Salisbury, 'being demanded his opinion, conceived it fit some lawyers should 'first be consulted with, how far forth the power of a synod in such cases did extend.

'He added, moreover, that the threefold admonition of a bishop 'ought solemnly to be done with some considerable intervals 'betwixt them, in which the party might have time of convenient 'deliberation. However, some days after, he was committed (by 'the King's command, as I take it) to the Gate-house, where he got by his restraint what he could never have got by his liberty; namely, of one reputed popish, to become for a short time po'pular, as the only confessor suffering for not subscribing the

canons.

Wood informs us on the authority of Laud's papers, that 'with 'much persuasions, he (Goodman) was drawn to subscribe;' but that for his obstinate refusal at first, and the scandal of it, he was by both houses, with a general consent, suspended ab officio et beneficio, till he had given the King and church satisfaction.'t This was in the true spirit of the dominant faction of the day, whose great object was to establish in Britain as absolute a spiritual despotism as the Inquisition had set up in Spain. Happily there were counteracting forces, which Laud was unable to control, and their expansive power was now about to be displayed.

During the time of the 'great rebellion,' as Mr. Brewer with genuine high-church orthodoxy terms the civil war, Goodman lived at Westminster in obscurity, having, according to the Oxford historian, been plundered, spoiled, robbed, and utterly undone.' He employed himself in the preparation of works designed to make known his own sufferings, and to explain the mysteries of the Christian religion.

It was to the honor of Cromwell, though these facts are overlooked by his libellers, that the deprived bishop, whom all parties suspected to be a concealed papist, was permitted to continue in the immediate neighbourhood of Whitehall, and in habits of intimate fellowship with the popish chaplain of the Queen Henrietta Maria. It was not against episcopalians or catholics that the protector warred, but against political factions, of which episcopacy and popery were the rallying points.

During the latter period of his life, Francis à S. Clara, a Do

Ch. Hist. B. XI. Cent. 17.

+ Athenæ Oxonienses, i. 623.